


on the night side of the earth

by allgoodlions



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: But mostly fluff, F/F, Fluff, a tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allgoodlions/pseuds/allgoodlions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla spends her evening reading in Styria's gloomy airport, waiting for Laura to come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the night side of the earth

_I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people’s eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth --_

A gauzy voice crackled over the airport PA, pulling Carmilla out of her book. She slid her finger in between the worn pages to mark her place and looked up to check the time, realizing she’d lost all track of it.

Maybe it was just Styria that made time seem to slip by, to slip away from her all unnoticed. This dusty corner of Austria was hungry and hollow, and maybe it would swallow her if she let it.

Maybe it was just the airport.

Late at night, the terminal was lit with blue fluorescents, which lent everything a surreal, unfocused quality. It cast contours in soft, pearl and velvet tones, and Carmilla was folded inside, a pocket of shadow fading into the hazy blue dark.

Airports themselves were strange, in-between places. Spaces between spaces, full of comings and goings, a constant shuffling mass of human traffic and stale, recycled air. It was almost lonely, watching all that humanity pass her by -- businessmen and families, little children who would grow up and pass on by and by and by. They were all part of it, part of a river, and she was a rock caught on the side of it.

That was something from a book, she was sure. She ground the heel of her palm into her eyes, which itched with tiredness. The name of the author flickered at the edge of memory, a tiny, opalescent thing that darted away from her and settled back into the murk that was centuries of remembering.

Carmilla leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she peered out through the tall gateside windows and into the rainy evening. Rain slicked the tarmac, reflecting pale suggestions of navigation lights into the night. The dark glass threw Carmilla’s reflection back at her, a sallow oval in the confusion of watery witchlight, a reluctant moon. She was, as ever, a ghost in all this living.

It made her chest hurt.

The high-pitched keen of an engine spinning up drilled into the base of her skull. She closed her eyes, and the rustling murmur of a hundred hundred voices, intermittently pierced by a baby’s fussy wail or a gate-change announcement, shrank to dull static in the back of her head.

_And all the world drops dead._

It hadn’t always been like this. It hadn’t always been sweatpants and slip-on shoes, security checks and expensive bottles of cheap booze. Packaged peanuts and stale pretzels -- she hardly had the patience for it.

But, _oh_ , the 1950s, the golden age of aviation -- style and poise at 30,000 feet. Children stuffed and starched into their Sunday best, men in sharp suits, and women in kitten heels and pencil skirts. Back when stewardesses were coiffed and manicured _airline hostesses_ and pilots were handsome young men, slicked back and shiny as their patent leather shoes. She could almost remember it fondly. She almost missed it. Now, it had all gone the way of in-flight cocktails -- whittled down to straight vodka and a handful of Ambien to sleep through the worst of it. Nothing to the way it used to be.

But then, Carmilla was nothing to the way she used to be either.

The 1950s was Paris and freedom and breathing for the first time since she’d been trapped in that awful coffin, drowning in blood. It was magical and fleeting, but she had been free. She was her own, beholden to no one, apologizing to no one. But it had been lonely too, in its own way. A stone-in-river loneliness. Lonely in the way Carmilla felt now. Just a deeper dark, lost in the dreamy blue half light so that travelers’ eyes slid over her without really seeing. Passing on and passing over her, and she was nothing to them.

Like a moment broken out of time and discarded. Like a -- a --

She groped for another metaphor, knowing she was being maudlin and hating that she was indulging herself. Styria had that effect on her. The land was old and it whispered in her bones, inviting remembrance that was all bitterness and no sweet.

Looking back was like heaving back the heavy old pages of something dusty, sepia and scratched. She felt, in a way, that she could watch a play of her life, a smudged kinetoscope movie that jerked and jittered, stumbled and spun on. Each century was an act, and each act was stolen. She’d lived far longer than any one person had a right to, and that filled her with such bone-deep weariness that she ached all over.

“Carm?”

Carmilla felt a soft hand on her head, and she looked up. For a moment, she felt very far away and very old. The voice in her throat didn’t sound like her own when she said, “Laura?”

But Laura smiled, and though it was a tired smile and frayed at the edges, it pulled Carmilla forward a hundred years and she was on her feet. The warm gold light spilling from the gateside cafe was in Laura’s hair and maybe the airport terminal felt a little brighter.

“Laura,” she said again, but this time it was her own voice, underpinned by the smile she returned without realizing it. She touched Laura's hair, tracing the gentle curl of it, on down the sensible collar of her buttondown shirt. It was Laura -- her bright girl. Shining girl. Laura, who somehow made the light part of herself and returned it.

She touched her forehead to Laura's own and closed her eyes -- _and all the world drops dead_.

"I think I made you up inside my head." She murmured, half to herself.

Carmilla felt rather than saw Laura's face scrunch in bemused concern. Then Laura shifted, tilted her head and pressed her mouth to Carmilla's. It was a small kiss, exploratory. It asked a question that Carmilla wasn't sure she could answer.

Instead, she kissed Laura back, deeply, sweetly, carefully. She imagined she could breathe the air in Laura's lungs, that her own empty chest was full of her golden girl. Laura made a small sound in the back of her throat, and relaxed, leaning into Carmilla's palm where it rested against her cheek.

But then Laura was pulling back, pulling away. She didn't put distance between them exactly. They were still close enough for kissing, but Laura seemed to hold herself consciously apart, eyes bright and searching. Carmilla answered with a gaze of such frank intensity that the blush that had worked its way into Laura's cheeks spread across her chest. She drew a deep, steadying breath and held it for a beat.

"I -- guess you missed me, huh?" Laura said finally, offering a sheepish smile.

"Yes." Carmilla's answer was full and heavy with longing. Laura's smile fell away, replaced by honest worry. She opened her mouth to speak again, but no words came. Instead, she folded Carmilla in a tight hug.

Carmilla wrapped her arms around Laura's waist. All the tension seemed to drain out of her, and she pressed her face into Laura's neck. Laura stroked her hair. She sighed quietly, and some last knotted piece of her unraveled.

They stayed that way for a long time.

"Maybe don't leave for so long next time," Carmilla said eventually.

Laura kissed the dark head still buried in her shoulder. "Maybe don't read such depressing literature when I'm gone," she suggested, gently teasing. She'd caught sight of Carmilla's reading material where it lay discarded on the seat behind her.

Carmilla's small, rueful laugh hummed through Laura's chest, making her smile. When Carmilla emerged from Laura's shoulder, she was smiling, too, in a self-conscious sort of way. If she was being honest, she probably deserved Laura's ribbing. At least a little.

"I have a healthy appreciation for the classics," she said defensively. "I think Plath counts."

"'Healthy' isn't the first word I would use to describe that novel."

"I like it." Carmilla insisted. "It's -- honest. It cuts in all the right places."

Laura raised an eyebrow at this.

Carmilla paused, thoughtful, then quoted, "'I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed/ And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.'" Her smile became a little predatory at the corners. "Not from the novel. But you can see the appeal."

"I can," Laura pressed her lips together in mock solemnity, but her eyes crinkled at the corners -- almost as good as a laugh.

"Maybe a demonstration ..." Carmilla trailed off, nuzzling Laura gently. Laura lifted her head, searching for the kiss, but Carmilla drew off a fraction, just out of reach. She studied Laura for the space of a breath, then languidly dipped her head and caught Laura in a hard kiss, full and lingering. When she finally pulled away, they were both a little breathless.

"Whoa, okay -- " Laura's face was beet red, and she pressed the back of her hand to one hot cheek. "No -- I mean, _yes_. Wow. _Carm_." She cleared her throat. "Maaaybe not here? We kind of have an audience."

Carmilla looked up. Laura was right: disembarking passengers streamed around them, never stopping but certainly glancing at them and then looking away with small, indulgent smiles. Smiles that said, _ah young love_ , and then grew a little wistful, perhaps remembering family and friends left behind. Perhaps at home. Perhaps much farther out of reach. Maybe it was Carmilla's imagination, but they seemed to quicken their pace, eager for a homecoming of their own.

She looked back to Laura, who was still peering up at her in a vaguely accusatory way. For Laura's sake, she tried to maintain a look of contrition, but her mouth twitched. It was hard to keep up the melancholy, centuries-old vampire bit when Laura was here in her arms.

"Have it your way, Cupcake." The kiss she pressed to Laura's lips was, to all appearances chaste, but she lingered a beat too long for decency. "Home?"

"Home," Laura agreed. 

The airport's gloomy pall seemed only a thin, receding shadow, trampled under the feet of a hundred weary travelers coming home. 

They left it behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit's due -- to Sylvia Plath's _The Bell Jar_ and her poem "Mad Girl's Love Song." Also to the birb nerd who edited this for me. And to the Milwaukee airport, which really is lit like that and gave me the idea.
> 
> If I've somehow mislabeled this or committed some egregious ao3 faux pas, let me know -- it's my first time posting here.


End file.
